Amazon listed on the Nasdaq at $18 a share with a market value of $438m in 1997, when it was just an online bookseller, with 256 employees. The share price rose gradually over the years, but started to rocket in 2015 after the firm posted substantial profits. Three years later, it became the world’s second…
Read more
One of the darker outcomes of 21st-century work life has been the predatory gig economy. Divorced from healthcare benefits and regular pay, millions of workers are told they are supposed to be lucky to drive passengers around in a car for ever-diminishing returns. Last week, there was hope that Proposition 22, a ballot measure that…
Read more
Towards the end of the last decade, two American social networks – Facebook and MySpace – were locked in a battle to conquer the rest of the world.
Uber Uber’s shares fell on a humiliating first day of trading in May and have closed above the $45 price of the initial public offering (IPO) on only two days since. The ride-hailing firm reported a $5.2bn loss for the three months to the end of June. Its biggest quarterly loss was weighed down by…
Read more
Debates about inflation in advanced economies have changed remarkably over the past decades. Setting aside (mis)measurement issues, concerns about debilitatingly high inflation and the excessive power of bond markets are long gone, and the worry now is that excessively low inflation may hinder growth.
Uber is seeking a valuation of $82.4bn, less than the $100bn it was hoping for, but still making it one of the largest IPOs of all time, and one of the most hotly anticipated stock market listings in the tech world since Facebook made its Wall Street debut seven years ago.
